In this book, Prof. M. R. Ghanoonparvar explores the differences between the narrative strategies of Iranian filmmakers and modernist Persian fiction writers. While most published studies on Iranian cinema and Persian fiction focus either on literature or on film separately and only address the topic of the present study in passing, in this book, the author examines the relationship, similarities, and differences between these two modes of storytelling. After an overview of modern Persian novels, short stories, and Iranian cinema, various chapters address issues related to the art of storytelling. In a chapter entitled “Fiction in Film,” the author focuses on filmmakers’ adaptations of modern Persian novels, novellas, and short stories and the differences between the original works of fiction and their cinematic adaptations. Since filmmakers work with the medium of sound, pictures, and spoken words, working within that medium, they inevitably must transform a story and reshape it through an artistic metamorphosis. This chapter also explores the question of the dependence of film on written fiction, in addition to the questions of the faithfulness and the artistic success or failure of adaptations. In another chapter, “Film in Fiction,” the argument is set forth that as cinema gradually became the dominant medium of storytelling, writers of fiction were influenced by its storytelling strategies and structures; and in the same way that one learns a language, fiction writers also learned narrative techniques from this new medium and adapted visual film techniques, including pan shots, freeze frames, and slow motion, and cinematic concepts such as sound effects and diegetic sound. In light of the most important events in Iran’s recent history, namely the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, the ensuing chapters explore the topic of war within the context of the revolution in the works of fiction writers and filmmakers. During and after the war, a large number of books of fiction and many films were devoted to the subject, both by those who experienced the war-front firsthand and by those who suffered its side effects. Stories and films were written and produced not only by supporters of the revolution and the regime but also by their detractors. While the first group’s works during the war served as propaganda for the regime and after the war the works of the same group represented an effort to sanctify the memory of the war that it called the “Sacred Defense” in addition to its “martyrs,” the second group’s stories and films functioned to some degree as anti-war propaganda. This book is written essentially from the perspective of a teacher of literature, avoiding the jargon of not only literary theory and criticism but also that of film criticism.

M. R. Ghanoonparvar

M.R. Ghanoonparvar is Professor Emeritus of Persian and Comparative Literature at The University of Texas at Austin. Professor Ghanoonparvar has also taught at the University of Isfahan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Arizona, and was a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Michigan. He has published widely on Persian literature and culture in both English and Persian and is the author of Prophets of Doom: Literature as a Socio-Political Phenomenon in Modern Iran (1984), In a Persian Mirror: Images of the West and Westerners in Iranian Fiction (1993), Translating the Garden (2001), Reading Chubak (2005), and Persian Cuisine: Traditional, Regional and Modern Foods (2006). His translations include Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s By the Pen, Sadeq Chubak’s The Patient Stone, Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun, Ahmad Kasravi’s On Islam and Shi’ism, Sadeq Hedayat’s The Myth of Creation, The Neighbor Says: Letters of Nima Yushij and the Philosophy of Modern Persian Poetry, Davud Ghaffarzadegan’s Fortune Told in Blood, Mohammad Reza Bayrami’s The Tales of Sabalan and Eagles of Hill 60, and Bahram Beyza’i’s Memoirs of the Actor in a Supporting Role. His edited volumes include Iranian Drama: An Anthology, In Transition: Essays on Culture and Identity in Middle Eastern Societies, Gholamhoseyn Sa’edi’s Othello in Wonderland and Mirror-Polishing Storytellers, and Moniru Ravanipur’s Satan Stones and Kanizu. He was the recipient of the 2008 Lois Roth Prize for Literary Translation. His most recent books are Iranian Film and Persian Fiction and Dining at the Safavid Court. His forthcoming book is Literary Diseases in Persian Literature, and his forthcoming translations include Shahrokh Meskub’s In the Alley of the Friend, Hushang Golshiri’s Book of Jinn, and Hamid Shokat’s Flight into Darkness: A Political Biography of Shapour Bakhtiar and Caught in the Crossfire: A Political Biography of Qvamossaltaneh.